


An Invitation

by The_Winged_Wolf



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Jealousy, Mike doesn't appear but his presence looms over Will heavily, One-Sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Pining, Sad Ending, mentions of the party - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 15:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Winged_Wolf/pseuds/The_Winged_Wolf
Summary: Will, an artist in New York City, gets a surprising invitation in the mail.





	An Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> I learned some things yesterday and need to channel my feelings about it. Apologies, Will. Heavy angst present.

_ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler and- _ Will’s eyes stopped there. He reread it.

_ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler and- _ again, Will stopped reading. His grip on the letter trembled.

It was a warm day in July. Will had planned to spend it in his apartment, painting. He had been asked to provide something for a gallery coming up and there were only a few days left to get it ready. He had drawn up a rough sketch so he knew what to paint, it was just the actual painting to do. He had gone out to get his mail after lunch, expecting nothing, really. His mail consisted of bills, a few magazines he was subscribed to, and the occasional letter from his family, usually his mom or Jonathan, sometimes El.

He hadn’t expected a letter from Mike, all the way in Los Angeles. He had not expected a wedding invitation. The last time he had even spoken to Mike was… was…

Will couldn’t remember. It felt like years. It had to be months, though. Right?  _ Right? _ Surely Will would have known if Mike had not only a steady relationship, but one steady enough for marriage. Maybe it had been years.

Will stared at the letter again.  _ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler and- _ Will couldn’t bring himself to care about the second name on the list. Other than that it was a girl’s name. Did it really matter who? It wasn’t El or Max so, really, it didn’t.

Truth is, it had been ages since Will had spoken to anyone in his old Party outside of El. After the Byers had left Hawkins a little over ten years ago, they had all started to just… drift apart. From the calls he had gotten from Lucas and Dustin, Mike had taken their leaving hard, hard enough that, gradually, over the course of their first year in high school, he had stopped hanging out with Lucas, Dustin, and Max as much. He still called Will and El plenty, but he never talked much of the others. Will had visited Hawkins to watch the four of them graduate high school, glad that it had fallen on a different date from his and El’s graduation, but after that…

El had never regained use of her powers, so letters and phone calls were all they had. Will had completely lost contact with Dustin in the middle of college. He had no idea where Dustin was or what he was doing. He knew Lucas and Max were somewhere in California since Max and El occasionally still talked, but he hadn’t talked to Lucas since around the same time he had last heard from Dustin. Somehow, they still weren’t married. Will wondered what the holdup was.

And Mike…

Mike had come to Will’s graduation, a shock for him, but after that, the calls and letters had lessened. He knew he had gone to California for a screenwriter’s job while Will stayed in New York to pursue a career as an artist and after that, most of the information he got came from Jonathan which in turn came from Nancy.

A girlfriend, a long-term,  _ serious _ girlfriend had never been mentioned.

_ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler and- _ Will wanted to tear the invitation up. What did it mean? Well, Will knew the obvious meaning: Mike,  _ his Mike,  _ was getting married to some girl Will had never known. But this… this was the first contact between the two of them since… since… Will couldn’t remember. This wasn’t… This wasn’t  _ fair _ . 

He felt tears prickle in his eyes. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear up the invitation. He wanted the bat he had used to destroy Castle Byers break everything in his apartment.

Had they all moved on? From the darkness of all those years ago? From the Upside-Down, the Demogorgon, the Mind Flayer and the Flayed? He knew El hadn’t, she was in Chicago, trying to find information on her siblings, the other children the lab had taken. But the others… did they still have nightmares that left them in a cold sweat on some nights and screaming in the others? Did they need to keep some form of light on in their bedrooms to keep the monsters away? Or was Will the only one?

_ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler and- _ Will put the invitation down on the table and started to pace. He knew what Mike was to him. Mike was more than his first friend, his best friend. Mike was his first love. Mike was the boy who gave Will hope, who let the sunshine in. Mike was the one who kept the shadows at bay. 

Will had had boyfriends during college at NYU and since then. Along with the occasional hookup. The joys of being gay and single in NYC in the 90s. More acceptance than his old small town home, but still the ever present danger. None of the boyfriends he could share his traumas with. Very few, perhaps one or two, he had talked about Mike with. They had nodded and sighed in commiseration, telling him about their own first loves and closet keys, how it hadn’t worked out, usually because they were straight.

Will had ended it shortly after that with any who did say that. It was more than that. Mike had literally saved his life. Twice over. This wasn’t some lost love who never reciprocated. There were times when Will had wondered if Mike… if Mike…

No, he couldn’t go down that road again. He couldn’t torment himself like that. And yet, he was being tormented right now. Words echoed in his head.

_ If we’re both going crazy, I guess we’ll go crazy together, right? _

_ It was the best thing I’ve ever done. _

_ What if you wanted to join another party? _

And at the end, the words from the invitation, seared into his brain, even without the letter in front of him.

_ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler and… _

Had it all been a lie? Had  _ all of that _ been a lie? Those years of friendship. Those years spent battling demons from another dimension. Those years of pining and wondering on Will’s side. He couldn’t believe this. He had figured back then, realistically, when his dreams didn’t get away from him, that when Mike got married, Will would be asked to be his best man. Will would have said yes, of course, and smiled as the love of his life got married to some faceless girl, but she would never have what Will and Mike would have, and now… now, Will was being invited as a mere wedding guest. 

Like the past 20 years had meant nothing.

Will clenched his fists. He wondered if the others were invited to. He wondered if Jonathan and Mom had gotten invitations and would call him soon to ask about it. He walked back to where he had left the invitation on the table and read the rest, his eyes halting at the bottom.

_ RSVP? _

And under it, a checkbox next to Yes, another checkbox next to No.

Will couldn’t remember grabbing a pen from somewhere and sitting down, his pen poised over the letter. Over  _ Yes _ . He didn’t know how long he sat there, wondering. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. It felt like an eternity.

He could go. He should go. He could possibly see everyone again, a reunion of the Party, and they could play one last game of D&D, for old times’ sake and-

No, no they couldn’t. They could never go back to old times. But he could at least see Mike. Mike with his kind, infectious smile and eyes that Will could drown in. With his freckles that Will had memorized when they were kids and were seared into his soul. With his voice that made Will weak in the knees and made him believe he could do anything. Will could see him and…

And…

And sit among a bunch of faceless guests as the love of his life got married to a faceless woman.

Tears dripped on to the table and the bottom of the letter. Will wiped his face and considered again.

_ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Michael Wheeler _ …

No. No, he couldn’t go. Mike hadn’t spoken to him in so long, and neither have the others. He couldn’t go. He couldn’t watch. His heart would be torn into pieces, much like it was now. He couldn’t bear seeing the boy who owned his heart give his away to someone else, someone Will didn’t even know. He wondered briefly what she was like. He wondered if meeting her and proposing to her and soon, marrying her were now the best things Mike had ever done.

He couldn’t. The fellowship had ended.

Will marked the checkbox next to  _ No _ , got up, and faced his apartment that only he lived in. He would mail it out later. He had a painting to work on.

Will went into his bedroom, crawled under a blanket, and wept.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [ tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/the-winged-wolf-bran-stark). One day, perhaps, I will learn why.


End file.
